Has your computer become the nerve center of your home? Are you finding that your family spends more and more time at the computer, both for work and play? If so, this set of home office cabinets is for you. It’s not a cute little “let’s hide the computer when we’re not using it” design. It’s a wood-worker’s version of a well-tested line of metal office furniture, with tons of capacity, convenience and flexibility. If you need space for a phone and a fax, a printer and a scanner, in addition to your computer, this unit can hold them all. Plus, it’s got storage for all the paper, reference material and miscellaneous clutter that an office always generates.
A “Power User” Design
The dark side of having lots of electronic gear is the mess of cords. We’ve devised a unique solution that not only keeps them hidden, but makes it simple to plug and unplug devices. Another problem with work areas is lighting; we’ve designed the upper cabinets w ith halogen lights underneath. And if you’re taking care of taxes, investments or business out of your home, you need plenty of space for files. We’ve included three spacious file drawers. We’ve avoided a separate compartment for the computer. Computers are getting smaller every year, and our guess is that it won’t be long before a separate computer compartment goes the way of fold-out typewriter tables.
This design is modular, so it gives you a lot of options. You could build just the lower unit or just the upper. You could build the desk with two of the left-hand drawer units instead of one.And if you’ve got the space, it would be simple to add base units and top units to make the system longer. A distinctive feature of these cabinets is the web frames used for the desk sides, the upper cabinet doors, and all the other “show” sur faces. We used a new adjustable matched tongue-and-groove router bit set (see Sources, page 108) to make the frames on the router table, but however you make them, they’re probably the simplest,fastest way to turn simple boxes into fine-looking furniture.
The overall dimensions of the cabinets shown in these photos, when installed, are 76-in. wide by 66-in. high.
MANAGE THOSE *$%# CORDS!
A loose panel at the back hides all the mess. It gives access to power strips on narrow shelves behind the desk, making it easy to connect and disconnect equipment.
THREE FILE DRAWERS that accept hanging files give you the capacity for serious home office work. They operate on heavy-duty ball bearing slides.
STORE PAPER SUPPLIES and reference materials behind flip-up doors. Cords for the under-cabinet lighting are concealed behind the bulletin board.
CUT BISCUIT SLOTS for drawers, using a piece of scrap as a support/layout board.With it, you can transfer slot locations to each part of each drawer accurately. Clamped to the drawer side, it also helps support the fence of the biscuit joiner.
THE BANE OF BISCUIT JOINERY is this alignment problem, which we faced with some of our prototype drawers. It occurs when you register the base or fence of the machine against the wrong surface.
The first rule to remember is this: mark the surfaces that have to end up perfectly positioned, and register the machine against those surfaces. The second rule is: always dr y-assemble. That way you’ll spot the problem before it’s unfixable.
MEASURE GROOVE TO GROOVE to ensure the drawer bottom is the right size. Mark a convenient distance from the bottom of one groove (in this case, 10 in.), then measure from the other groove to your mark.
